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What Remains.
Tyrants Issue 33- "What Remains." '''Front cover- '''Kaan'Qsst stands on the cover in a combat pose, one fist turned into a blade and pointed at the floor, the other arm pointed at the reader as a six barrelled gatling gun, and over his shoulders is a rack of small missile launchers. Along the bottom of the cover are the words THE ORIGINS OF KAAN'QSST. Null moves to the left, so that Kaan'Qsst is not in the path of his energy, as he focusses the white cone of energy at the Dungeon Master, as it blasts either side of him as well, still only barely missing Kaan'Qsst who steps back raising his eyes from the glare. "You won't die", Null says to Dungeon Master, the comic focussing on Null as cups both hands together, raising them in front of him, projecting out the energy. "I am just removing the aberrant energy sources from you. Making you stable." As he keeps the energies focussed on DM, he looks over at Icarus. "With Icarus's help, we may be able to counter both invading energy signatures." Icarus flies above, energy wings pure white, as he projects his own more direct beam from his wings, which covers Dungeon Master, but doesn't project out to either side like Null's beam. "AaaaaaarrrrGGGGHHHH!" shown from the side, Dungeon Master drops to his knees. "I thought you said he wouldn't die!" the razorback, the remaining conscious dinosaur yells. "He shouldn't be feeling pain, this is just a nullification beam!" Null yells back. Both he and DM are shown in several long panels. In the first, white energy fills his body, then it shatters apart. In the second panel, the purple energy burns out of him like some kind of purple fog. In the third panel, he collapses. Null keeps directing the energy, though the glow is much less, and it ebbs to a low pulse. "I don't understand this." Kaan'Qsst glances down, as the reader sees what he sees, the black energy encompassing his seemingly human form. "He is a machine. The synthetic flesh hides it, but I see it. You have temporarily shut him down entirely, not just the energy signatures you detected." "That explains the third signature I can see... I didn't realise that was an in internal power output for now. I can't extniguish the rogue signatures however, only keep them at bay whilst I focus my power." "Then he cannot be cured of his malfunction," Kaan'Qsst says plainly. "Not by me. I can't permanently remove these energies. I assume that that is what is causing the malfunction." Kaan'Qsst looks more closely. There is a black silhoutte of a brain shape, but within the black mass are several holes. "The energies aren't causing a malfunction. There is damage to his brain causing a malfunction, which these invading energies are... exascerbating." "Then, I could, uh, operate. But not while foccussing these energies. It takes a lot of concentration." Icarus flies down. "Though the little machines inside me are gone, I still retain the powers I had access too through them. Through their... beautiful... connection." He lands, and gestures to Null, and his own identical white glowing hands as example. "That is why I have your power, without taking it. If I focus it, will it keep this one... comatose. Whilst you... operate, on this strange machine-man." Null stares at Icarus's emitted energy; in his vision, Null's energy glow is considerably brighter than Icarus's. "Interesting. You seem to have some ability to take power and copy it for your own use, and the nanites allowed you to become for some kind of sponge for all the mutants in the network. Unfortunately, your power is a copy of my mine, more of a ghost of it. Not as powerful." Icarus gives Null a hot glare and a growl. Null raises up one hand, whilst the other continues to direct energy at Dungeon Master. "Not an insult, I assure you. I am just saying that, with either of us focussing the energies, there is a chance that Dungeon Master's invading energies will fight back. Or Dungeon Master himself. Even now I can see that he seems to have some energy leeching ability. Its the reason why his body hasn't simply been torn apart by this dimension's energies, but also why he malfunctions from it. He can absorb the energy and regulate what he absorbs, but I assume, due to the malfunction, that regulation is not fully operational, and is causing further harm to his mind. In short, both of us, we can contain him with less of a risk. If I leave you to do so alone, the results could be catastrophic." "You talk too much! I am ICARUS. I will keep this one DOWN!" Null looks over to Kaan'Qsst. Kaan'Qsst steps over. He looks down at Dungeon Master. "So you can operate on his robotic mind, and possibly repair the damage?" "Possibly. You are the only one who can currently see that damage. I cannot see how extensive it is." "But still, there is possibility. This one has much power. It would be foolish to squander it. You say he could awaken any moment?" "Correct", Null says. Kaan'Qsst bends over Dungeon Master, and then places his hands on his chest. "Kaan'Qsst has nothing to fear from machines. Continue. If he awakens, and is hostile... I will do what needs to be done." Null looks over at Icarus."Ready?" "I was ready BEFORE you began blathering endlessly!" "I shall take that as an affirmative." Nulls clenches his fists, and extinguishes the energies from his hands. Icarus continues, with one hand, as he lands on the ground, to shine his own nullification beam at Dungeon Master's face. "See! I HAVE him! Now get to work..." he looks around at the devastated, now very quiet landscape around him. "I have no wish to stand here for too long..." The razorback is searching through the rubble. He finds the unconscious compsognathus, Little Mike, among the rubble and picks him up. "Well, I'll just leave you to your..." Kaan'Qsst looks over. "You are welcome to aid us. We are enemies no longer." "I know you. I know you are Cain's friend." He lifts up Mike. "This is one of my bosses. When he wakes up, I can ask him to tell Cain about you. To find you." "Cain and I already have a means of communication. Unfortunately, he does not appear to be answering. He may not have survived." "Then there are others... I need to go back to my kind." The Razorback starts to walk off. "Then if Cain continues not to answer. I will be in touch with what remains of your command." "Uh... okay." The Razorback stomps off. Null bends down, opening up some square containers on his utility belt, as he takes out some tools. He removes Dungeon Master's wizard hat, and sees a full head of black hair, as well as the partially flax, hanging 'skin' on his face. With his mask off, Graham Stevens looks rather uneasy. "It is not real flesh and hair", says Kaan'Qsst. "I know. But that is what I see..." The reader doesn't see as he cuts open the head, instead they see Dungeon Master's motionless face as his head blocks the reader from viewing Null as he makes his incisions. "So, this may take a while" says Null. He looks to Icarus. "If he does not awaken." "He WILL NOT awaken", Icarus hisses. There are two panels of complete silence. In the third, Graham looks over to Kaan'Qsst, then back at Dungeon Master's opened head. Now the cybernetic circuitry, and brain shaped technological device, is clear. "So." "You cannot stand not talking", says Kaan'Qsst, "I can cope with silence. However. You wish my allegiance. I need to no more." "I have told you what there is. Your planet will be invaded by the Kraan. You wish to save it. The Kraan will enslave your ones that do not fight, using them as slaves until they die from the work, and then use their corpses to birth their eggs. I wish to destroy them. The heroes will clearly wish a more... moral deterrant. It will not work. Admittedly, the last time a method was used to destroy the Kraan utterly, it failed. Motivated them." "You saw this... method?" "I was there. Present. They did not use science against them. No machines, at least. They used the power of another dimension against another race. The Metal Nine Thousand. Some of them believed it magic. Their ritual succeeded in turning the Nine Thousand against the Kraan. But the Kraan were not destroyed. They were whittled. But once where there were warring hives, there was unity." Null looks up from his work, at Kaan'Qsst. "And now all these Hives are one invading force, as opposed to multiple forces that could oppose each other as much as other planets and species?" "Correct. They have spent decades rampaging through the galaxy, enslaving the weaker planets, and destroying the planets that cost them too much." "Earth has a legion of super-beings now, thanks to the Titans. So I assume they elect to destroy us?" Kaan'Qsst rises, putting a foot onto Dungeon Master's chest to free his hands. "No. There is too much value in the Earth to many species. Esepcially the Kraan. You see, mutation exists in other species, but with occasional exceptions, the results are minor, and rarely progressive to the species. They are accidents, mistakes. Except for the Olympians. They used mutation with purpose. Designed it. Sculpted it. Mutations with a singular goal. Mutation as singular evolution. They used this knowledge to turn themselves from Titans, to Olympians, for those that did not deny that choice. In turn, they saw themselves gods. Then there was Hephaeustus." The comic shows Hephaesutus, the large, ugly, red bearded premier scientist of the Olympians, sat over a computer, which has many genetic images on the screen. "He crafted my race. The Vor. He took plant matter." Kaan'Qsst lifts up a metal hand, and turns it back to its natural green. "And to each sample he grew something, each with a different form, a different mind, a different set of abilities. We were each unique, like the gods before us. But we were programmed to be servants. And to be peaceful. Hephaeustus was the god of fire, but also god of artifice... and what better creation and than peaceful life itself?" The comic shows several green creatures, shaped like bat, bird and ray-like creatures, flying through space in the foreground of the panel. In the background, fly the massive, red, beetle shaped Kraan ships, flying blue plasma beams. "But, we came across the Kraan. And where the Vor were peace, the Kraan were destruction embodied. The Olympians had us as their children, the Titans... well they had the Kraan. The unwanted children." The comic shows several red-skinned, power armoured Titans, firing laser rifles at thousands of incoming Kraan on a desolate mountainous planet, as the Kraan swarm over the massive rectangular wreck of the crashed Titan ship. "We were decimated. At every turn, the Kraan found us, they killed us by score after score. We were not made to fight. So Hephaeustus built the second generation." The comic cuts back to the present. Null lifts the positronic brain out of Dungeon Master's head. "There, that should prevent him from causing us any problems, where I restore him or not", says Null. "This second generation. Your generation?" Kaan'Qsst grins. "Yes. We were still made for peace, but... we had a secondary directive. Whenever you find Kraan. Destroy them." The comic shows Kaan'Qsst, lifting up a Kraan, whose hip-mounted plasma cannons are gone, with the cannons on, Kaan'Qsst's own hips, against the Kraan's abominal area, as the beam blasts through it. "And were good at what we were built for. But the other Vor feared us. They could not understand us." "Glub", hisses Icarus. "Yes. Like Glub. And so, when the first generation appealed to Hephaeustus, he ceased making more. He had only barely begun his work. Leaving the five of us. And we were grim council indeed, so we were cast out. Declared Rogue. Betrayed by our father, and our brothers. Of the second generation, we are what remains." Null steps closer to Kaan'Qsst. "Yet you still hunt the Kraan." "I cannot do anything else. It is what I am. Keddek of the Vor, or, as I was once dubbed by some aliens loyal to my cause, and have remained... Kaan'Qsst... in your tongue, I believe it would translate as 'Kraan Destroyer.'" "So the Kraan killed your ,kind... yet all the Vor were individually mutated." Null lifts the positronic brain and looks at it as he talks to Kaan'Qsst. "Yet they had no care. So why the interest in Earth?" "Vor; we are essentially, plant-life. Kraan are carnivorous. They could not eat us. We are not meat, so they could not lay their eggs in us. We were simply in their way so they destroyed us. They had killed nearly all of us before the Overmind came to them. Hephaustus broke his own rules, and created one more second generation Vor; Terraform." The comic cuts to show a massive planet-sized shell, where at the front, there is a dead hanging mass of eyestalks and tentacles. "The Kraan destroyed most of another race who tried to fight them. The Tez;catai." The comic shows a legion of tentacled, snail like creatures, flying towards the Kraan. "Like my species, mostly peaceful, and being psionic, they could not breach the Hive Minds. And so most of them died. Hephaeustus found the largest, oldest Teza'catai corpse and..." The comic shows Hepaheustus stomping along the shell of the giant corpse. He puts down some seeds. "And returned it to life." "As Terraform." Null sits back down, opening up the cybernetic brain. "Yes. When Terraform attacked us Earth due to the small Kraan presence, one single Hive, the other Gathered Hives were introduced to the thing that now call the Overmind. An amalgam of a Team Titan robot, and Blitzkrieg. Though the Hives had already been united, their purposes were simple. They never changed. With the Overmind... came new purpose." "The Kraan interest in Earth... its from the Overmind?" "You've seen what Blitzkrieg did to this city... with the Kraan, he has control over a large scale. But unlike the occupants of this city, no diversity." Null puts the brain down. "So, with the Kraan, he will try and enslave Earth's mutants?" "I believe he will try to find a way to, yes. Or... a way to allow the Kraan to mutate themselves." Null stands up, walking away from Kaan'Qsst. "So. What would the Kraan do if Earth ''had ''no mutants?" "They would still invade, use you for food, slaves and bodies for their young, as usual. And of course, the planet would be far easier to conquer." Null turns, and then kneels back down. "Then it seems we are doomed either way. Especially if the Earth ''needs ''mutants.. I can't believe I am saying that." "You are the man with the means of mutation. Mass produced... it could be what is need to destroy the Kraan." "You want me to make an army of superheroes?" Kaan'Qsst places hand on Null's right shoulder. "Super ''soldiers. ''Our army. And when they are done, you can take their powers away again." Kaan'Qsst leans in. "And everyone elses, if that is your choice." Null picks up Dungeon Master's brain again. "This is difficult. I will require time to think on it. However, fixing this will take ''much ''time." Null looks to Icarus, still generating the nullifying energy over Dungeon Master's body. "You can stop that now. I've taken the brain out. I don't think he will be causing us any problems." Icarus looks both annoyed and embarassed. "Fine." He snaps his fingers, and the light turns off. And then Dungeon Master's eyes blaze white. It gets to its feet. Icarus's energy wings blaze back into life. "I THOUGHT HE WAS MINDLESS!" The comic cuts to show Null looking at Dungeon Master... the white energy presence is now back in the body, fully, from his energy sensing vision's perspective. "On the contrary", says the Dungeon Master. "I am very much alive." End of issue.